The concept of meritocracy provides justification and cover to the nation in refusing to acknowledge and in denying the actual causes for the tremendous chasms in the wealth distribution and in educational achievement, and for the overall systemic inequities based on social identities.

What do they lose without the extended net of people coming and going, without the example of constantly welcoming friends new and old? Will they grow up to be exclusive, or clannish, or closed-minded?

Watching a collection of supposed experts trying to positively align the idealised (and increasingly narrow) vision of a conservative "nuclear family" and the natural world should be funny, but instead it's just deeply worrying.

The American family's structure is no longer a perfect slice of apple pie. We've got nests that are no longer empty as jobless millennials move back in with mom and dad and redefine our latest obsession with what it means to be "occupied."

To be single at heart, I think, means that you see yourself as single. Your life may or may not include the occasional romantic relationship, but you don't aspire to live as part of a couple for the long term.